The NCAA baseball tournament kicks off today and for three Island players it is clearly a special time.

For seniors Stephen Rivera and Ed Medina of St. John's it is the last hurrah, but for Kevin Krause of Stony Brook it's the first of what he hopes will be four such trips.

St. John's (37-21) will take on East Carolina (35-22-1) as the No. 3 seed at 1 p.m. in the four-team bracket being hosted by No. 1 North Carolina, seeded sixth nationally, at its Chapel Hill, N.C., campus.

UNC (44-12) will take on Cornell (31-15-1) in the second game.

The Red Storm captured its conference-record seventh Big East championship to advance to the NCAA for the third straight season, fifth time in six seasons, seventh time in nine seasons and 34th time in program history, tied for eighth all-time.

Rivera (Monsignor Farrell) has helped by posting a 1.84 ERA and a 5-0 record out of the bullpen. He has appeared in 24 games, has four saves and has struck out 49 in the same amount of innings and opponents are batting just .210 against the righty.

Medina is 3-2 with a 5.02 ERA in 15 appearances totalling 37Ò innings while opponents are batting .257 against the former Moore Catholic right-hander.

Krause has played a pretty big part in the Seawolves' 46-11 America East championship season (second straight title) and will face the No. 1 seeded Miami (36-21) in Alex Rodriguez Park in Coral Gables, Fla., tonight at 7 p.m.

Joining the Seawolves and Hurricanes, ranked No. 21 in the country, in the Coral Gables regional are No. 2 Central Florida (43-15) and No. 3 Missouri State (39-20).

Stony Brook has the top winning percentage in Division I (.807) and has won 11 straight and 22 of 23. Ranked No. 30 in the latest NCBWA poll, the Seawolves will be making their fourth all-time regional appearance and third in the last five years.

This will be the second all-time meeting between Miami and Stony Brook. The first took place on March 19, 2003 when then-freshman and future National League MVP Ryan Braun hit a game-ending single in the 10th inning to lift the Hurricanes to a 9-8 victory.

Krause (Tottenville HS) split time as a designated hitter and catcher and appeared in 51 games. He batted .343 with 12 extra-base hits and 35 RBI. He had a .450 slugging percentage and a .415 on-base average.

Those impressive numbers earned him a 2nd team all-conference berth and a 1st team spot on the league Rookie squad.